Famous Downleveling Ships

Throughout its history, the most celebrated ships of the Empire are its pentascopers. Expensive and difficult to produce, pentascopers are generally used by intergalactic traders, but most of the mindsea-emperors throughout imperial history have kept them as status symbols.

A pentascoper can downlevel five times. Each time it downlevels, it meshes with a deeper level. Components useful on shallower levels cease to function, and a new set of components comes together and activates. The ship takes on a different appearance for those aboard. The Deep-blind, who cannot process the patterns of the new level, fall asleep. Observers on levels deeper or shallower than that of the ship would not see it clearly. Those on deeper levels might notice something tenuous and bubble-like. Those on shallower levels might notice a wake of unfusing particles

The deeper the ship goes, the more difficult it becomes to describe it. It will have many aspects, hidden dimensions that spring out seemingly at random, having no similarity to objects in the human realm.

The universe too looks very different to those onboard a downleveled ship. Space grows more viscous with each downleveling. On Deep Five, space is solid. A pentascoper seems to roll along a corridor with many other corridors branching away in more directions than are possible on shallower levels. The gravity wells of stars may manifest as rooms along the corridors.

Amber Sun is the ship of Aturon, the second emperor, who used it to escape his duties, his father, and the Milky Way Galaxy. He may still be fleeing, never to return until he has circumnavigated the universe. But there are those who claim to have seen Amber Sun.

Whirlaway is the ship of Quokisa, the Shadowfolk empress. Like Aturon, she may lurk at the edge of the galaxy. Because Deep Five contracts time so greatly, a millennium seems only days long to those whose lives are spent traveling on pentrascopers.

Serious is the ship flown by an intergalactic trader named Eria, Quintillion's half sister. Serious made regular runs to Andromeda throughout the Decadent Epoch and the Contested Era. It might not have been a ship at all, but a manifestation of Eria's Torsa horse, also named Serious.

Counting on Kindness Belongs to Head of the Pilots Guild Orgmorgan. It is a floating palace, with onboard playgrounds and spas, as well as the usual amenities such as a wonderdome, a capacious cargo bay, and a docking bay for a fleet of shuttles. During the Decadent Epoch, it was Horl's ship. He called it Genesis IV.

Lucky Dragon is seldom seen in the Milky Way, though it once appeared with a golden moon in its wake. Some believe that the man who flies her, Drako, is the Earth-God incognito.

Sola was Thermeon's pride and joy, flown during the Code War and the Great War. When he was betrayed and ousted from the throne he flew her to the Andromeda galaxy, where he encountered the Andromeda Settlers Association. After running several missions for ASA, he broke their business agreement because he wanted to return to the Milky Way, and had to turn Sola over to them.

Reflection is Fuerida's ship, built by Horl. She is sleek as a golden arrow and looks too small to be a pentascoper. During the Aiggle War, she was refitted to land on planetary surfaces, and Thermeon flew her at the head of the Buzzfly Squadron.

Silverlance is Morning Glory's ship. A silvery version of Reflection. She was named Unforgiven by Horl, and Morning Glory changed her name to Seeker when she first got her. She became Silverlance for the expedition Morning Glory hoped would find help for averting the Cataclysm. The expedition failed, and when Morning Glory died in the Cataclysm, Silverlance became her daughter Kweenk's ship.

Mantis is the ship Horl made with his wife when he was married to Thermeon's daughter Quixa. Her bridge was a bit gaudy, and her shape a bit lopsided, but she flew fine. When Quixa and Horl died in the War Between Levels, Mantis passed to Quixa's half-brother Dino.

Kiadox was the ship Thermeon Thermeon built himself for his journey to the Stairway of Ice. He was immensely proud of his work, even though Orgmorgan made fun of her. She was destroyed by Serpenlino in the aftermath of the Aiggle War.

When she personified the soul-gem, Puflet insisted on a palace that was also a pentascoping space-plane, and Horl built it for her. The ship-name of the palace was Surge.

Freedom I-XXIII are pentascoping space-planes conceived by Serpenlino and built by Shell at the Rexros shipyard for the push to erradicate slavery and piracy from the galaxy in the Hundred-sixth Millennium.